Stranger Familiar
by Jana Kay
Summary: Willow reflects on her life and mirrors.


TITLE: Stranger Familiar  
AUTHOR: Jana Kay  
EMAIL: jana_kay17@yahoo.com  
DISCLAIMER: Characters named here are the property of Joss Whedon, the WB, 20th Century Fox, and Mutant Enemy.   
RATING: PG-13 for some language and adult themes.  
SPOILERS: Major for 'Dopplegangland' in S3, and this takes place soon after it.  
SUMMARY: Willow reflects on her life and mirrors.  
NOTES: These here //...// contain dialogue from the past. For all you nit-picky people out there, I think I should tell you right now that they're not all real quotes, so don't email me telling me that some were never said on the show, because I already know that.  
  
*****  
  
When you look into a mirror, there are so many different faces that can stare back at you. So many if you just give yourself the chance to see them. To open your eyes and really stare, firmly telling yourself the whole time that what you see in front of you is real. It's all real, and you have to believe it because it's you. You have to believe in it, in yourself, or what are you? What could you possibly be?  
  
Of course nobody ever said that what you find in there if you have the stomach to really make yourself see, is guaranteed to be great or brilliant or life affirming. And nobody ever said it would be beautiful. That's just what we like to think. As humans, we always like to look for the bright side in every shadow, the prick of dawn in ever blackened night, never realising that sometimes, there's just nothing light there to see.   
  
Because nobody's one-sided and nobody's two-dimensional.  
  
It's just like pictures. My parents once took me to the New York Gallery years ago, and there was the most amazing painting in there. I can still remember it vividly to this day. It was a sweeping tapestry of blues and golds and greens in every possible light and shade you could think of, with just a hint of vivid, crimson red splashed in it to make your blood chill at the ominous sight it made. For the first time, I really understood what people meant when they said a single picture could paint a thousand words.   
  
And believe me they can. You just have to be willing to hear them. You have to be willing to face every single one and believe it for what it is. Because pictures don't lie, just like a mirror doesn't. And a mirror is probably the bluntest and most truthful object you could ever find. You look in it, and it isn't like the mirrors in fairytales like Snow White where the Queen's mirror tells her that she's the fairest in the land, oh no, it always shows you just exactly what's there. It doesn't matter if you face it in the morning or at night, when you're pretty or when you know you must look hideous. The mirror never lies, no matter what face it chooses to show you.   
  
When they look at me, what do they see?   
  
The fluffy sweaters and the scuffed sneakers? The bright clothes and the baggy overalls? When they look in my direction and tilt their heads with that 'let's indulge her' smile, do they still imagine I wear the ponytails from my childhood and the training bra it took me what seemed like forever to get rid of?  
  
To be honest, I sometimes still see myself that way, when I stand in front of the mirror at night in my Winnie the Pooh nightie, clutching the ratty old teddy bear Xander gave me for Christmas one year because he never seemed to remember I don't celebrate it. I stand in front of the mirror in my room when the moonlight plays over the curtains and shards of silver fall on my face, and I see the innocence of youth in the curve of my back, in the way my lower lip pulls slightly away from my teeth so my lips are slightly parted as I breathe, in the comfortable way I curl my toes in the soft carpet.   
  
So many faces.  
  
And I look at myself then and I see what they must see. The shy one. The quiet one. The sweet little innocent hacker. The dependable and good-natured best friend. The adorable redhead who never has a potty mouth, the perpetual romantic, the endearing good witch who can just never seem to get it right....  
  
Our Willow.  
  
The little, stupid child.  
  
I've started to become bitter lately. You wouldn't think it if you saw me. Over the years I've perfected many masks, to save myself from the hurt that would come if I ever made my true feelings known. To save myself from the world crashing and tumbling in around me if I ever opened my heart up too much and became too vulnerable. To stop my true self from ever coming out, for fear of never being accepted for who I really am by the images of confidence and perfection that surrounded, and still surround me day in and day out.   
  
First there was the one I wore around Xander. //Of course you're my best friend Xander, why would you think anything funny's going on?//  
  
Then there was the one I wore around Buffy. //I'm completely okay with Xander liking you Buffy. You're his friend after all//  
  
The one I wore around Cordelia. //Of course we're okay now Cordelia, I'm dating Oz now and I think I love him//  
  
And let's not forget the one I wore the most. //I love you Oz//  
  
And maybe somewhere back then I did. Maybe once upon a time I did love Oz, really and truly, because of his goodness and kindness and the way his voice always softened when he said my name.... I don't know. Maybe it was one of the faces that stared back at me as I explored my face in the mirror night after night. How can I remember? There's too many to count as it is. Always too many as I tilt my head this way and that every night and poke and prod, staring into the mirror as I try to learn everything I can about myself, try to discover it all....  
  
But I never could.   
  
I'd always get to a certain spot right near the end and then just stop. I could never go any further. And I'd cringe as I moved away from the mirror, too scared, always too scared to take that one last look, the one I knew would tell me everything about myself that I needed, that I desperately desired to know. The look that would tell me everything I thirsted for, saving me from drowning and dying in the sands of the desert like a parched man who was never able to reach the dazzling oasis for fear of it being an illusion, and having his rising hopes dashed up against the sweeping walls of a cliff in the rumbling storm at sea all over again.   
  
That one last look. The punch that wouldn't be held back. The kick that would sweep my legs out from under me. The blow that would wind me with its ferocity.   
  
But I was always too scared.   
  
And because of that, deep down I thought maybe I really was their Willow.  
  
Maybe I really was the sweet little Willow that needed their protection every moment of every single day. The sweet little Willow who couldn't walk home alone because obviously, she's too fragile to handle it. The sweet little stupid Willow who believed every word they said and took it to heart, who whenever she spoke up was looked down on with loving but still condescending smirks as she carefully tossed her ideas into the mix and had them thrown back in her face in unceremonious style.   
  
And so for awhile I believed it, and I stopped looking at myself in the mirror every night because I thought I'd found who I was. I didn't need to look any harder because I believed in this image of myself. I really and truly did. I believed wholeheartedly in the face that stared back at me, the one they all saw, the only one they ever saw. And I wore the customary clothes and carried the customary attitude and didn't so much as make a squeak of protest.   
  
Every day for so long, I wore the masks that were mine by right, and carried on the way I thought I should. The way I thought I was.   
  
Our Willow. Our damned Willow.   
  
But then she came along. Me....but not.  
  
Looking at her was like looking in a funhouse mirror where the familiar features are the same but disjointed, as though my face had been taken apart and then put back together again, but a part here was missing and a part there was in the wrong place, and the final image it gave was one of frightening familiarity, but so opposite the two faces existed on opposing edges of a scale.   
  
And the eyes, they were the most different. Inhuman and hungry yet so shockingly familiar....they called to me. Because I could still see the endless tears cried for Xander in those green pools, the joy of finally achieving acceptance, the sadness for all the people I'd seen die and had mourned for.   
  
And then when she smiled at me so softly and sweetly, all the while running her fingers -- my fingers -- down my hot face, a part of me felt like giving in. We'd be sisters and we'd rule the world together, and I wouldn't have to worry about finding that last piece of myself in a mirror night after night, trying to finally force myself to find that one last face I was always too scared to see....because I'd no longer exist in one.  
  
If I gave in I'd stand in front of the long sheet of silvered glass in my room and the only thing I'd see would be the fluffy coverlet on the bed behind me, a remnant of a past that had lied to me and never truly taken care of me, never kept me safe. And I'd be able to see it as though I was a ghost, nothing standing between the mirror and everything behind me to block it out.   
  
If I gave in, then the search I never let myself finish would be over.  
  
But we were interrupted and I fell back into my role again, into my masks, and I pretended that I was their Willow again, but something inside me had changed.   
  
Faced with having to wear her clothes I slid them on with another mask, this one showing discomfort and unease, but deep inside I felt my soul purr at the feel of the creaky leather beneath my fingers, the slice of creamy cleavage I was never supposed to show at other times, the looks Xander and Angel were sending my way. I pretended to be uncomfortable, their little Willow to the core. Deep inside I lapped it up, and when I walked into the Bronze I reveled in playing her, in being her....in being me.   
  
It was in the Bronze that the final face came to me, that I realised why I felt the terror at looking in the mirror for just that little bit too long. I'd always known what it would show me. Always. It just took another me to realise. To make me truly stand up and take note.   
  
To throw the blinders off and face up to my fear.   
  
That the darkness, the blackness, the obliterating wild streak that I was too afraid to look at rests inside me.   
  
And as I looked around the Bronze taking in the frightened faces of all the students who'd tormented me, some crying softly now in disbelief and fear, I wore that face for the first time, my last face, the final puzzle to who I was, the final face in the mirror, reveling in finally knowing what it was I was supposed to be.   
  
Buffy wanted to kill her. She couldn't seem to understand why I wouldn't let her. Of course, I couldn't tell her the truth. Instead I trotted out the sensible Willow excuse that, 'she's from another world, we have no right to change it, to interfere,' and so they didn't.   
  
They sent her back.  
  
And in so doing they left me behind, trying to pick up the jagged pieces that cut like ferocious knives no matter how lightly they touched my skin. Having to face the looks, and the stares and the constant muddle of people looking out for me like I was going to break at any moment. Having to face Oz and Buffy, Xander and Giles and all the things they wanted to say....   
  
//She's not you Willow, you know that//  
  
//I know she's not//   
  
//She's nothing like you, she's just one sick twisted person, you have to understand that//  
  
//I do Buffy, I do//  
  
Never mind what Angel had said. Oh no. Not so for the mighty Slayer. Buffy just cut him off like a trainer does to their mindless puppy. No wonder she called him Puppy. When I saw the way he stood back and shut up I wanted to scream at him, ask him just where his spine had gotten to and demand he finish explaining what it was he'd been saying.   
  
But I know what he was going to say anyway.   
  
It doesn't matter that she's a vampire and I'm not. She's exactly like me. She is me. Her demon took what was already there and used it. It didn't bring anything new. It couldn't.  
  
And Oz was holding me afterwards, his arms wrapped around my waist as we stood in the corridor outside the library, his nose nuzzling my hair.   
  
//I'm glad you're not like her Willow//  
  
//So am I//  
  
And I almost choked as I said it.   
  
Almost.  
  
And as I wrapped my arms around him, the part of me that I had just so recently discovered shrieked in protest. But I kept denying. And denying, denying, denying, denying, denying....  
  
That night though, I'd let myself stand in front of the mirror and stare into it for the first time in a long time, finally seeing clearly. For the first time, I saw clearly just exactly who I was now, who I could be. And all the different facets and little idiosyncrasies and quirks of my personality were right there screaming out at me as though they were written all over my face, and I started laughing so long and so hysterically my mom came up to see what the problem was.   
  
//No problem mom. I was just remembering a joke//  
  
//Are you sure, Willow sweetie?//  
  
A perfect little smile, with just a touch of a smirk as I calmly answered her.  
  
//Perfectly//  
  
And I was. So so sure. I felt myself being drawn back to the mirror time and time again that night and it was always the same. It was as though the soap flakes had finally died and settled in the pretty little crystal dome of my mind. Everything that appeared muddled before now showed so starkly and bright, like a splash of blood over pristine white snow or a pure white tablecloth that became covered in black paint.   
  
For the first time in a long time....in forever....I, Willow Rosenberg, felt free.  
  
But the next morning as the ritual of getting dressed loomed, I had two opposing forces battling inside me, using my body as a stage for warfare as they dealt each other powerful blows, and it was almost as though they were physically knocking me about, as though I was nothing more than a skinny toothpick.   
  
Inevitably, the stronger part of me that had been around the longest had won out. I'd come to school dressed as expected. A fluffy purple sweater, a black skirt that came to just above my knees, whitish stockings and a pair of sensible sneakers, my hair hanging loosely around my face.  
  
//Look. Isn't it cute how Wills hides behind her hair?//  
  
And Giles had found me passing by the doors to the library, had gently grasped my elbow //be careful Xander, she's very fragile right now// and led me inside, intent on talking over any problems I might have.  
  
//I'm hear to talk if you need me Willow. What you went through, well, no one should ever have to go through that. To see yourself as a, ah as a, a....//  
  
//Vampire, Giles. You can say it//  
  
//Ah, quite. Well if you, if there's anything you wish to discuss....//  
  
//I won't hesitate Giles. I know where your office is//  
  
But at the same time as I heard him stuttering his way through his offer to help, a part of me wanted to grab him and shake him roughly //I WON'T BREAK DAMMIT// and show him just how much I was capable of, and just how much he didn't need to worry.   
  
Because the new part of me was growing stronger quickly, and I could already feel it start to slowly eat away at what I once was.  
  
Their Willow.  
  
And now, I don't know how much longer I can carry on like they expect me to. I honestly don't know how I'm going to last, how much more I can take before I start to hate myself and them for allowing myself to be crammed into a tiny corner of the mirror when there are so many of my other faces, so many other parts of me that could stretch and engulf and cover the whole thing.   
  
After all, why should I have to limit myself when they obviously aren't? And they're not even trying to hide it. I watch them and it's as though it's their right, and everyday they all -- Buffy and Xander especially -- spread themselves everywhere and anywhere. On me; on my space; they don't care. I'm beginning to wonder if they ever did.   
  
The breaking point's coming, I can feel it.   
  
The bitterness has already begun. The new part of me is eating up the old like a cancer, growing and multiplying and spreading its way through my body like a dark, heavy blanket, and some of the newly formed hatred has crept in to hide behind my eyes. It's as though I'm powerless to stop it. I keep waiting for the day when one of them will look up and catch my eye, then freeze in terror as they see the seething mass of poison I carry with me uncoil and strike at them with the speed of a slithery, deadly snake.  
  
And every morning I loathe myself as I find my hands reaching for the fluffy material in my wardrobe, but every morning they take longer to get there.   
  
And every afternoon I curse myself as I sit in the library and research for them like a hardworking and always dependable slave, but every afternoon it takes me longer to get there.  
  
And after a few hours I always rise and leave, conveniently forgetting the cross and stake their Willow always used to carry, and I walk home alone and cut through the park as I take the long way, lingering more and more under the stars every night as I try to make the journey last longer....forever.  
  
One night I'll never make it home.   
  
And the next morning they'll find my carefully concealed but still in plain sight protection and freeze in panic, frantically calling my home to no avail because nobody will be there. And they'll leave school and search for me, not willing to believe that anything bad could possibly happen to their poor, defenseless little Willow, not willing to believe that they weren't able to protect me and save me in time. Not willing to believe that they helped kill me because they didn't bother to walk me home, each and every one of them too wrapped up in their own little lives.  
  
And then I'll stand back and laugh, because I'll still be able to. I may be dead but I'll still be pretty, and I'll still be standing and watching and taunting and making them see every little bad thing they ever did to me or failed to notice. I'll make them see in excruciating detail just how much they ignored me and took me for granted. Just how much I was a part of them and just how much they really need me.   
  
I'll show them, every single one, just how much they missed out on when they forced me to believe I was something other than what I was born to be.   
  
For years. They made me believe it for so many fucking years.  
  
//You're the best friend type Wills, you inspire cuddliness//  
  
//My Willow//  
  
//Willow! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?//  
  
//She's not you Wills, she's really not//  
  
//Nobody believes you're like that Willow, and remember, if you need anything at all....//  
  
//She wasn't you okay? Get over it already. Although she did have better style. Mondo slutty, but still better//  
  
//Seeing her terrified me Willow. I swear I'll never let anything like that happen to you. You're too amazing to end up like that//  
  
//Our Willow....//  
  
I'm dying more and more each day, shriveling up and disintegrating into little pieces of nothing, but I never disappear. The old parts are being quickly filled in with the new leaving no gaping empty cavities, no tell tale signs of what I was before. I'm becoming whole again, and life is suddenly taking on a much clearer meaning.  
  
Payback's gonna to be a bitch, for each and every one of them.  
  
And so help me, I can't wait.  
  
  
The End.  



End file.
